


A Sorcerer By Any Other Name

by Steamcraft



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen, Memory Return, Reincarnation, short thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-09
Updated: 2013-03-09
Packaged: 2017-12-04 17:26:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/713207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steamcraft/pseuds/Steamcraft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whatever you think, Jethro is a pretty awesome name.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Sorcerer By Any Other Name

 

The Doctor stops for a moment, when everything is quiet and happy, and really looks at the kid with the embarrassing parents. He sees the time within ( _everything that ever happened, everything that ever will_ ), and knows that Jethro Cane is not all who he knows himself to be.

He goes to him at the refreshment table. “How’re you liking it?”

Jethro shrugs and gives a wry grin. “It’s alright for a ride that you can’t see the sights for.” His grin widens and he sips from his drink. “If we didn’t know any better, they could be having us on.”

“Nah, they wouldn’t do that!”

“What would we know, inside a car with no windows we can see from.”

“Benefit of the doubt?”

Jethro laughs, and they fall in a companionable silence. The Doctor watches him inconspicuously as the teen’s expression becomes thoughtful while he looks on to his parents chatting up with the Professor.

Then he says, “I wouldn’t have even come with if my friend Arthur didn’t tell me it would do some good.”

The Doctor feigns interest to a T, but maybe because he is interested. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” Jethro nods, seeming far off, “I recently found out I was adopted, and that’s why they’ve always tried so hard.” He glances at the Time Lord. “Don’t get me wrong. As embarrassing as they are, I still wouldn’t trade them for anything.”

Inwardly, the Doctor wonderes if the ancient Guinevere or Morgan le Fey, or even Lancelot reincarnated along with this so-called Jethro and his friend Arthur. Outwardly, he states, “You know, you don’t really peg me for a ‘Jethro’.”

The teen laughs again and turns his attention on him. “That’s what Arthur said, too. He keeps saying he always wants to call me something else, just doesn’t know what.”

“Well… If you could change your name, what would it be?”

“Hm. Probably… Something historic, and powerful. A name that everyone would know. Like… Albert!” He looks pleased with himself; the Doctor stared.

“That could be good, the man behind Earth's Victoria, but,” he pauses. “What about a little more historic than that. Like,  _legendary_.”

Jethro’s interested, the Doctor can tell. The under nature of his natural curiousness, feeling a separate part from him, but just doesn’t know what it is. Maybe something someone says can help that feeling, maybe it’s all in his head; the Doctor can sense this happening in Jethro, know he feels incomplete without knowing his true identity.

“Merlin.”

The Doctor can see the exact moment when Jethro is not Jethro any longer. He might still answer to Jethro to his adoptive parents, but its not the name Arthur will call him, what he will call himself. The clarity in Merlin’s eyes is unbelievable, and after the long moments of remembering all of his lives like a disconnected Time Lord living in different bodies, he stares at the Doctor with thankfulness.

“Thank you,” he says with utmost gratitude, watches him as though he knows and understands this man in front of him is nothing less than non-human.

“I’m just here to help,” the Doctor answers with a small smile, gathers a drink together, and goes to sit back in his seat to ride the Midnight train.


End file.
